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To us they denote only the phaenomena, because we have ceased to believe in what else they once designated; and the employment of them in explanation is to us evidently, as M. Comte says, the naïf reproduction of the phaenomenon as the reason for itself: but it was not so in the beginning.
Surprized, and much disgusted at this filthy phaenomenon, I asked by what means, and by whose permission, those dirty hags had got down into the basin, in order to contaminate the water at its fountain-head; and understood they belonged to the commandant of the place, who had keys of the subterranean passage.
This may suffice to show, that even natural science, which commences with the material phaenomenon as the reality and substance of things existing, does yet by the necessity of theorizing unconsciously, and as it were instinctively, end in nature as an intelligence; and by this tendency the science of nature becomes finally natural philosophy, the one of the two poles of fundamental science.
There is however one contradictory phaenomenon, which may prove, that it is not absolutely impossible for ideas to go before their correspondent impressions. I believe it will readily be allowed that the several distinct ideas of colours, which enter by the eyes, or those of sounds, which are conveyed by the hearing, are really different from each other, though at the same time resembling.
Happy is it for mankind that the appearance of the small-pox a second time on the same person, beyond a trivial extent, is so extremely rare that it is looked upon as a phaenomenon! Indeed, since the publication of Dr. Heberden's paper on the Varicellae, or chicken-pox, the idea of such an occurrence, in deference to authority so truly respectable, has been generally relinquished.
When we are accustomed to see two impressions conjoined together, the appearance or idea of the one immediately carries us to the idea of the other. Being fully satisfyed on this head, I make a third set of experiments, in order to know, whether any thing be requisite, beside the customary transition, towards the production of this phaenomenon of belief.
These passions, therefore, arise from our observing the proportion; that is, from a comparison. I have already observed, that the mind has a much stronger propensity to pride than to humility, and have endeavoured, from the principles of human nature, to assign a cause for this phaenomenon. Whether my reasoning be received or not, the phaenomenon is undisputed, and appears in many instances.
To invent without scruple a new principle to every new phaenomenon, instead of adapting it to the old; to overload our hypotheses with a variety of this kind; are certain proofs, that none of these principles is the just one, and that we only desire, by a number of falsehoods, to cover our ignorance of the truth.
First, I never have observed, that this noise coued proceed from any thing but the motion of a door; and therefore conclude, that the present phaenomenon is a contradiction to all past experience, unless the door, which I remember on the other side the chamber, be still in being.
If in considering the nature of relation, and that facility of transition, which is essential to it, we can satisfy ourselves concerning the reality of this phaenomenon, it is well: But I must confess I place my chief confidence in experience to prove so material a principle.
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